Morning Moonlight: Nikon 18-70mm @ 31mm, f/8 15 seconds
Last night, I got a camera upgrade! No, I didn’t buy a new D2xs or a D3, but I finally downloaded and installed Nikon’s firmware update for the “D2″ series of cameras, which can be found here.
The upgrade is fairly significant for the D2x. Although it has been out for more than a year, I am just getting around to upgrading. I don’t know how I found out about it, or which paths led me to it, but I’m glad that I did!
The top picture is taken (almost) directly from the camera. I’ve adjusted the levels just a little bit and added some sharpening. What’s so important? It’s in B&W, or rather gray scale, straight out of the camera! Big deal, you might say, my camera does that too! Well, until October of 2006, when this firmware upgrade was released, the D2x didn’t do this!
Many times when I’m out, I want to photograph something with a black and white print in mind. Well, taking a color picture and then imagining black and white is quite different than taking a black and white picture, viewing it, and then continuing to make adjustments. When I had my Minolta DiMage A1, I used the black and white mode a lot. I’ll have to experiment with this a bit to see if the output is different between taking it in ‘native’ B&W or if it is better to convert from color. I can always use these as ‘proofs’ if it turns out that the color conversion is better. Having multiple shooting banks makes this very easy to do. With a push of a button or two, I can have my camera configured a completely different way. Currently I have 3: Normal, B&W, and Sports.
There are some other features, like increased auto focus sensitivity/capability, but I probably wouldn’t really notice a difference. It’s pretty good at the auto focus anyway. Perhaps I’ll notice when I put on my 80-200mm and try to focus on some smaller items, which is where the auto focus usually has problems.
Fun with multiple exposure. Not new, but still fun
Nikon have also squeezed in a couple of ISO numbers between 800 and H1. If your camera is set up in 1/3 EV increments, you can now get H 0.3 (1000 ISO), and H 0.7 (1250), before you get to H1 (ISO 1600). Not a big deal, but it is still cool what they can do with software!
Anyway, it was a great upgrade and one that I’m sure to enjoy.
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7 Responses to “Finally, B&W mode: D2x Firmware upgrade”
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I guess I don’t understand something. My camera has a grayscale option as well, but I can’t figure out what the technical advantage is. Isn’t this just an in-camera process that you could do more efficiently in Photoshop yourself? As a general rule, I shy from all the in-camera filters and gadgets, but maybe I am missing something. I mean, when you shoot in B&W mode, do you get greater dynamic range than you would have with a B&W conversion? Feeling a bit clueless at the moment.
Great question, Bob. For me, it is about the visualization process. Shooting in color all of the time, I had to ‘imagine’ what it would look like in B & W. Now, with the Black & White mode, I can get a much better idea. Sure, it’s gray scale and doesn’t look anywhere near what the final output will be, contrast wise, but at least I get a better idea of the possibilities.
The 3 color channels are still available, though they are in gray scale as well. I can go into the channel mixer and still adjust the channels individually to get what I want. The only disadvantage is that I cannot go back to color.
I never updated the firmware on the D200, but mine wasn’t experiencing any of the glitches the update addressed and there wasn’t much else in the update so I let sleeping dogs lie.
I’ve used the RAW+JPEG and Black and white mode, but I still like the control of converting the RAW file better that what the camera can do. The advantage of doing that is you still have the RAW image in color to revert to. I don’t do it anymore since I still prefer the Photoshop conversion to black and white and I don’t like to clutter up the card.
Cool pictures………Once again you have shed light on a very gray subject=). I think I will try that mode just to play around with it.
Richard: I’m happy to have this mode, now!
It’s nice to be able to visualize what it looks like in B&W, even if I probably won’t use this mode much.
Nice shots… I wonder if that firmware upgrade applies to the D200. If not maybe I can use it as an excuse to upgrade to a D3….
Kalim, thanks for posting. The upgrade does apply to the D200; however, it already has this feature. The upgrade changes very little for the D200.